Model comparison
Granite 4.0 H Small vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.0 to 36.5 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 13 shared benchmarks.
NVIDIASummary
- They share 13 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.0 H Small scores higher in 0 categories and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning in 8 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads 37.5 to 31.4.
Side by side
| Granite 4.0 H Small | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | NVIDIA |
| Noometry Index | 36.5 | 40.0 |
| Released | — | 2026-08-11 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | — | 262K |
| Max output | — | 262K |
| Input $ / M tokens | — | $0.05 |
| Output $ / M tokens | — | $0.20 |
| Results tracked | 19 | 18 |
Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry
Category by category
Coding Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads
Granite 4.0 H Small: 36.4 (#209), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 40.4 (#141)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 H Small | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1249 | 1375 |
Reasoning Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads
Granite 4.0 H Small: 24.4 (#163), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 26.8 (#127)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 H Small | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1240 | 1337 |
Math Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads
Granite 4.0 H Small: 31.4 (#223), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 37.5 (#155)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 H Small | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1247 | 1359 |
| Omni-MATH | 29.6% | — |
Knowledge Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads
Granite 4.0 H Small: 32.0 (#215), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 37.5 (#154)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 H Small | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1251 | 1356 |
| MMLU-Pro | 56.9% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 5.2% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 38.3% | — |
Multilingual Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads
Granite 4.0 H Small: 38.6 (#228), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 44.0 (#180)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 H Small | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1216 | 1295 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1249 | 1359 |
| LMArena Russian | 1201 | 1253 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1258 | 1345 |
| LMArena French | — | 1366 |
| LMArena German | — | 1282 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1206 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1238 |
Instruction Following Too close to call
Granite 4.0 H Small: 68.7 (#183), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 69.6 (#170)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 H Small | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1222 | 1318 |
| IFEval | 89% | — |
Long Context Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads
Granite 4.0 H Small: 37.7 (#213), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 39.9 (#165)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 H Small | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1242 | 1314 |
Writing & Preference Nemotron 3.5 Lightning leads
Granite 4.0 H Small: 43.8 (#227), Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 48.5 (#201)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 H Small | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1241 | 1327 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1211 | 1254 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1242 | 1328 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | — | 1280 |
| WildBench | 73.9% | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Granite 4.0 H Small better than Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.0 to 36.5 on the Noometry Index.
Is Granite 4.0 H Small or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning better for coding?
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.4 versus 36.4 in the Noometry coding category.
How many benchmarks do Granite 4.0 H Small and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning share?
13 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.0 H Small has 19 scored results on Noometry and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has 18.